Leverage and Maximize

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Not to be a curmudge or anything, but check out this news release header:

Event Planners Will Learn to Leverage Public Relations to Maximize Integrated Marketing at HSMAI's Event Technology Expo(TM) @ Affordable Meetings(R) National

Yikes! The particular release was issued by the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) to tout an upcoming event featuring a PR Newswire expert discussing what, I don't know. Here's the lead:

MCLEAN, Va., July 30 -- Successful marketing and public relations are essential to promoting attendance, sponsorships, exhibit sales, and overall industry awareness for meetings and events.

Double yikes! As a member in good standing of PR Newswire, i.e., I pay my bills on time, I happen to like the folks there, not to mention the service. I also belong to PRN rival Business Wire of which I'm also quite fond. But whomever sanctioned this news release - PR Newswire or HSMAI -- should really re-think the tenets of press release writing. In other words, stick to distribution.

Hey, maybe the release was written solely for the purpose of gaming Google with keyword densities that include "leverage," "maximize," "integrated," "marketing"...

I was with a client prospect the other day and he asked me what competencies his company should be seeking in an agency. In addition to relevant industry experience and some digital acumen, I mentioned that decent writing seems to be at a premium among agencies nowadays.

In thinking about it now, I probably should have come clean and said that any firm using the verbs leverage and maximize should be stricken from the list. Here are some helpful links that reflect on overused, meaningless PR words, and other PR no-no's:

• Into PR
• Word Currency
• Marketing and PR Programs for Emerging Business
• Ron Shevlin's Marketing Whims
• Briarcopywriting's Weblog
• Bad Pitch Blog
  

P.S. Have you been following the Scrabulous story? This item was posted in this space on Dec 26, 2007.

Beijing Blues

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Officials Investigate Reports of Censorship at Olympic Press Center

The Last Empire: China's Pollution Problem Goes Global

Free Tibet, Say Australian Olympians

Before Guests, Beijing Hides Some Messes

Chinese Clash with Protesters at Torch Run in Seoul

Olympic Paranoia Clutches China

Beijing Considers More Emergency Air Action

In little more than a week's time, China will open its doors to the eyes and ears of the world, as captured, recorded and dissected ad nausea by the so-called free media. I wonder if the politicos there truly knew what they were getting into following IOC's 2001 jubilant designation of Beijing as the 2008 Olympic Games host city?

Be careful what you wish for...is the title of David Glenn Cox's post this morning in Daily Kos:

The Peoples Corporate Republic of China, the world's largest slave labor plantation, have sought desperately to showcase to the world their Two Systems -One China policy by hosting the Olympic games.

Can they pull it off? Will "the thrill of victory and agony of defeat" overshadow all else? How can you keep all those bloggers down on the farm?

From this blogger's perspective, I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find a PR pro who wouldn't agree that the Herculean PR task with which China is now confronted -- as the media spotlight takes focus -- makes all others pale in comparison.

Fame Formula

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For years, I've believed that the higher one's fame rises, the lower it can (and often does) fall, only to rise even higher. (Think Charlie Sheen, Britney, Kate Moss, Mel Gibson, and soon, Kiefer Sutherland).

I once considered making application to one of journalism's fellowship programs with a thesis that would attempt to scientifically measure how celebrity, fame, reputation, whatever you want to call it, ebbs and flows, with the goal of determining how human action (e.g., PR intervention) influences the peaks and valleys and length of time between.

Sure enough, a Brit by the name of Borkowski beat me to it:

All the research I have conducted, and the analysis of a select group of willing mathematically minded researchers, has revealed a relatively simple formula that illustrates how fame, left unattended, goes into decline, and why those who wish to remain in the public consciousness must be prepared to pay for it. They just need to pay the right people to come up with something new.

His formula, as captured in a piece in today's Guardian newspaper, pegged to the forthcoming publication of his new book, Fame Formula: How Hollywood's Fixers, Fakers & Star Makers Shaped The Publicity Industry, goes like this:

F(T) = B+P(1/10T+1/2T2)

where:

F is the level of fame;

T is time, measured in three-monthly intervals. So T=1 is after three months, T=2 is after six months, etc. Fame is at its peak when T=0. (Putting T=0 into the equation gives an infinite fame peak, not mathematically accurate, perhaps, but the concept of the level of fame being off the radar is apposite.);

B is a base level of fame that we identified and quantified by analysing the average level of fame in the year before peak. For George Clooney, B would be a large number, but for a fabulous nobody, like a new Big Brother contestant, B is zero;

P is the increment of fame above the base level, that establishes the individual firmly at the front of public consciousness.

The study showed pretty conclusively that any specific boost to fame is sustained for approximately 15 months and that each celebrity or brand was surprisingly similar in the way their fame decayed.

I do have this other theory, which says that fame can also be achieved without any PR intervention whatsoever. Consider how some of today's most revered often shun the media spotlight. Their accomplishments alone define their celebrity.

Comcast Listens...At Last

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I just came back from the Lincoln dealer, which had finally fixed the dent in my roof caused by a failed roof rack. (When I arrived to collect my car, the owner smiled at me and said "squeaky wheel.")

You may remember my post on the Monday after the July 4th weekend wherein I ranted on just how "dumb" Ford customer service was by refusing to pay for the problem not of this Lincoln loyalist's making.

The post prompted some interesting comments, including one from a senior communications executive at Dell, which, as a company, learned a thing or two about customer service these last couple of years. More importantly, at least for me, it caught Ford's eye:

Peter - I just wanted to let you know that Ford is listening and we are currently looking into your issue.

Whitney E. Drake
Ford Global Digital Communications

The youthful Brian Stelter reports in Friday's New York Times that one of the more reviled consumer-facing companies is now actively listening to "the conversation" -- and engaging where necessary. As Comcast's Digital Care Manager, Frank Eliason serves as the company's early warning system, also charged with neutralizing (or at least softening) brewing brouhahas. One customer, who angrily blogged about an excessive cable bill, had this to say:

“It’s one thing to spit vitriol about a company when they can’t hear you,” she said in an interview. It’s another, she said, when the company replies. “I immediately backed down and softened my tone when I knew I was talking to a real person.”

Of course, this is the company that inadvertently created one of the most popular PR case studies on the power of citizen journalism: the infamous Comcast Repairman (who fell asleep on a customer's couch). And shortly thereafter, Ad Age's Bob Garfield started a nifty, but nasty site called Comcastmustdie to rally the groundswell against the nation's largest cable provider.

On the one hand, we should be encouraged that Comcast finally woke up and smelled the coffee. On the other, how much reputational damage was done before it did?

As for me, there's a silver lining to my online rant about Ford customer service: my wife finally sees some purpose to my posts. (It saved us $250.)

Oh, btw, if you're not good listeners, here are several firms that will do it for you:

• Converseon
  
• TNS/Cymfony
• Trackur
  

Hannah's Handlers

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When we last visited Montana, the excursion traversed the career gaffe her handlers made in allowing their youthful charge to succumb to the allure of a racy Annie Leibovitz photo shoot for Vanity Fair.

Boy did Miley Cyrus ever pay the price! Soon thereafter, Disney seemed to toss aside its unfathomably popular child star and puts its marketing muscle behind its next anointed one, Selena Gomez.

Not to be counted down for the count, Ms. Cyrus's handlers determined that a free outdoor concert smack in the middle of the media capital of the world was just the ticket to adulthood.

The coverage of this week's event, which included a fab spot on Disney-owned GMA, was over the top...just in time for her new album.

Anyway, I couldn't resist offering some commentary on the hard-edged celebrity publicist slaving away to Ms. Cyrus on the streets of NYC as a schwag porter who appears to relish her role scowling at the paparazzi and fans.

To Ms. Cyrus's publicist I ask: do you really want to help your client? First smile, then cajole her to stop for five minutes to sign a couple of fan autographs. And if you think this humanizing gesture is below a 15-year-old, then try to explain the new (natural) movie role that Ms. Cyrus is trumored to be considering.

Twitter Friends

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I have 165 "follower requests" on Twitter, 17 "friend requests" on Facebook, and 72 "invitations to connect" on LinkedIn. And I don't know what to do.

These numbers no doubt are minuscule compared to those of the more prolific users of these prevalent social media platforms. I just wonder if I'm being disrespectful for not readily accepting their unsolicited overtures.

Of course I recognize that building one's audience remains the holy grail of the social media set, not to mention bloggers. Didn't The Times's Brian Stelter just tell us how the founder of MacRumors abandoned his medical practice based on his (comfort)ability to monetize his blog with its 4.4 million visitors and 40 million monthly page views? (He's in the minority, trust me.)

I ask: what harm is there in letting voyeuristic strangers follow you on Twitter or subscribe to your FriendFeed? It's not like I'm posting anything obscene or career-limiting, let alone provocative.

Still, I feel strangely compelled to apply some discretion in deciding whom I choose to follow or by whom I wish to be friended or linked in. In a weird way, I'm proud of my admittedly smaller, but hand-picked social network(s), and that even includes Geni (my family tree).

Today, Vator.TV's Bambi Francisco, formerly of CBS Marketwatch (and going back, Lou Dobbs' "Moneyline"), framed her video interview with Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey as follows:

In 2004, I wrote: “I’m searched, therefore I am. To borrow from Rene Descartes' philosophy, in today's Internet-obsessed world, we know we exist, not because we think, but because we're searched.” Today, thanks to Twitter, it's more like "I'm followed, therefore I am."

But are you? I mean wouldn't you want your burgeoning existence in the social media world to be by design (preferably your own)? It may not be Rene Descartes, but isn't there some truth to being judged by the friends you keep.

Should I strive to follow thousands and have thousands follow me? I think not. For me for now, it's a quality versus quantity thing. I therefore try to resist PR vendors and headhunters, both of which stand to gain more from mining my contacts that I do theirs. I also bypass total strangers, as well as anyone who follows more than 500 people...a threshold that will invariably rise.

Jobs' Job

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The company that has done the best job of any in controlling how it's viewed in the court of public opinion may have its hands full with a new and most delicate matter.

Reuters picked up on a New York Post biz piece today speculating on the health of Apple chief Steve Jobs whose gaunt appearance at a June developers conference first set tongues-a-wagging. At the time, "Apple reps blamed Jobs' weight loss on an unspecified illness that required treatment with antibiotics."

Mr. Jobs had a pancreatic tumor removed nearly five years ago. Some say that the company knew of his condition nine months before the public announcement, yet chose to withhold the information. The new spate of rumors, tied to today's earnings announcement and including questions about whether Apple has a succession plan in place, appear to be germinating among the hedge fund crowd.

(When will these hedge hogs finally get slapped with the regulation they, and we, deserve?)

Fake Steve Jobs may have retired, but the PR consiglieres at Apple still have some tough choices before them. Some in their midst will contend that Mr. Jobs' health is ostensibly a private matter. Other armchair quarterbacks, of which I am one, believe that Mr. Jobs' health is very much a public matter and should be addressed quickly - before today's most catalytic New York Post piece takes on a life of its own.

15 Minutes More

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I just heard from my buddy Howard Bragman, fresh off his PR duties on the Ed McMahon foreclosure imbroglio. Howard tipped me off to his latest rehabilitative work-in-progress: Al Reynolds. Who, you ask? Wasn't he the guy that drove OJ on the infamous LA freeway chase? No. Different Al.

This is the guy who, like Al Cowlings, gained his notoriety (I mean fame) through a high profile celebrity association. Al Reynolds is the soon-to-be ex-husband of the original Bridezilla, Star Jones (pictured here...before the surgery).

Anyway, Al wants everyone to know, and has retained one of the best in the west to make it happen, that he's a regular guy in spite of marrying Star Jones. (God, what was he thinking?)

Instead of relying solely on the media filter to tell the story -- the AP and "Show Biz Tonight" notwithstanding -- Howard chose to deploy the successor strategy to the video news release: the video YouTube.

Working with a "real" broadcast journalist (shades of Karen Ryan), Howard arranged for Al to tape three segments sharing his side of the story. He posted the videos yesterday. Fueled by the "400+ pick-ups" of The AP story and the segment on "Show Biz," one of the three clips now counts 23,000 views and growing.

Howard feels there are some precedent-setting PR tactics here, but I pointed him to the Katie Couric (and Tom Cruise before her) items I posted on celebrities taking reputation management into their own hands. Still, a good strategy, that is if you really give a rat's a** about Al Reynolds.

The Decisive Dozen

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Maybe I was brainwashed as outside PR counsel for the organization's 150th anniversary, or simply smitten with the special World War II photo book it created to mark the opening of the national World War II Memorial, but it's certainly worth noting that the "world's largest and oldest news organization" today announced that it has realigned its national business desk around 12 beats.




Following are the dozen key AP national biz beat editors you may need to know (depending on the industry in which your clients reside):

1. Joyce M. Rosenberg (financial markets)
2. Patrick Rizzo (economy)
   
3. Amy Finkelstein (retailing)
   
4. Brian Bergstein (technology)
   
5. Laura Impellizzeri (media, entertainment, leisure and lodging)
   
6. Michael Lee (health care)
   
7. Joseph Altman (autos)
   
8. Greg Stec (airlines)
   
9. Charles Sheehan (energy)
   
10. David Brinkerhoff (manufacturing)
11. Trevor Delaney (personal finance)
    
12. Noelle Knox (real estate)

The savvy PR types also know that AP bureaus, and specifically their city desks, remain equally important for gaining editorial traction for your client. Happy pitching.

Pedestrian PR Pitch

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Any pitch that starts off with "Hope you're well" is the kiss of death as New York Times business columnist, and now blogger, Joe Nocera astutely confirmed for us yesterday in his "Executive Suite" blog.

The object of his disaffection: a publicist named Amanda from a PR firm that shares its name with the sporting world's most coveted brand. (I'll let you guess.)

Other than the extreme length of the pitch -- don't journos eye glaze over after the first two lines? -- I wonder how Mr. Nocera's name surfaced as someone who would even consider a column about a "chicer" baby stroller whose occupants are called "fashion accessories."

Joe, it's a pretty awful pitch, I agree, especially considering the usual fare you cover. But the one that still takes the cake in my book was outed by your ink-stained colleague Gene Weingarten at the Washington Post. That pitch promoted the Funeral Directors Association...pegged to a potential terrorist attack.

"The Spirit of the Cover"

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It would be fairly easy to jump on The New Yorker-bashing bandwagon today for its satirical cover featuring Barack and Michelle Obama as fictionalized Muslim terrorist and fist-bumping radical, respectively.

It would be easy if one didn't truly get the shock culture of Condé Nast wherein David Remnick's glossed-out siblings have few qualms about popping former (and current) substance abusers on their covers and celebrity miscreants inside their books.

It's all about single copy sales, stupid, and in that department, this week's well-intentioned, yet ill-conceived New Yorker cover buzz-handedly accomplishes the task (though perhaps at the expense of paid subs). The inside text, btw, does provides some thoughtful context for Senator Obama's political career. But, as we used to say, we read Playboy for the articles too.

Separately, the most emailed story in today's New York Times is not a story at all. It's an op-ed written by that youthful (and now unintentionally smeared) Senator from Illinois outlining his plan for Iraq. It speaks volumes about the readers of The New York Times.

In defending the New Yorker cover, some pundits explained that the magazine's sophisticated readers know the difference between satire and reality. Yet, somehow I don't see The New York Times ever taking this kind of tack. As Bob Cesca writes in the pro-Obama Huffington Post, this "bad satire" transcends the "peawits" and will only fuel the Rovian rumors.

What surprised me was how the PR team at The New Yorker didn't fully anticipate the firestorm. Yesterday's voluminous news release, while leading with a cursory mention of the incendiary cover art, droned on about the piece inside. Didn't they figure that the cover art might need a little more than a single sentence of explanation?

Had they, would it have been necessary for David Remnick to have availed himself (via email it seems) to HuffPost's Rachel Sklar? Would the magazine have had to issue the following clarifying statement about its cover, which it says:

"...combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are. The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall? All of them echo one attack or another," the magazine said in the statement. "Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover."

I guess, but there are many registered voters who will not see the "obvious distortion," and instead see this as a validation of the malicious rumors that regularly cross their desktops. For that reason, the cover didn't do it for me.

Non-Kosher PR

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Following PR Newser's befuddling profile of the proprietor of the self-proclaimed "fastest-growing" PR firm in America, why is this blogger not surprised by today's Gawker item titled "Scheme To Blame Intern For PR Fraud Unravels."

In it, the snarky blog outs the firm for its scheme, on behalf of its newest client, to introduce a new term into the PR lexicon: "kosher astroturfing."

So this is the type of firm the IABC recognizes as a paradigm for our industry?

Leaders Who Lie

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A while ago I read an insider account of Yasser Arafat's approach to wooing the court of public opinion. In essence, the report confirmed something I had long suspected: anything that emanated from the mouth of this dead terrorist was not to be trusted.

In the piece, Arafat apparently admitted privately that he would say or do anything, including accepting Israel's right to exist, to deflect from his real goal of seeing the Jewish state wiped off the map.

His hand-shaking photo-ops with Israeli and American leaders were all a ruse to mask his true intentions. (If you don't believe me, take a look at the English-language translations of the incendiary speeches he regularly delivered in Arabic to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.)

In America, we take for granted the truthiness of what comes out of the mouths of our leaders. When we sense deception or distortion, we historically counted on the fourth estate to ferret out the truth. At least that's the way it worked until the Bushies came to the Beltway.

Today, with mainstream journalism in a state of flux and with many world leaders granted a license to deceive (partly as a result of the media deception practiced by this administration), the public must rely on other, less pervasive (but hopefully more viral) means to learn what's real and what's not.

I mean we've witnessed Vladimir Putin deliver his government's POV through Russia's state-owned media, just as we've seen Zimbabwe's state-owned media prominently propogate Robert Mugabe's sham election triumph.

But today's rant comes back to Arafat and his propagandist successors, notably Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We all heard about Iran's ballistic missile test this week. Well, it seems that the launch was not all it was trumped up to be (excuse the pun).

In other words, the Iranian money shot showing four launches was doctored by Sepah News, "the media arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard." In reality, one of the four missiles misfired, but the image that moved on the Palestinian-sympatico news agency, Agence France-Presse, and was picked up around the globe, showed all four had successfully fired. AFP has since retracted the veracity of the image.

Unfortunately, we probably won't hear much about this here since it has limited appeal to most Americans' news sensibility, at least compared to let's say the doctoring of a Katie Couric photo.

A Summer's Read

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Next time you're in a room with a group of your agency colleagues, go around the table and ask each one to name the last career-related book they've read. Better, ask them to name the last three books they've read period.

Now don't be alarmed by what comes back (or doesn't, as the case may be). After all, who can question the value derived from an exclusive diet of net-based news and info?

Now that July 4 has come and gone, don't fret. There's still time to catch up on your long-form reading. Here are a few non-fiction tomes worth considering.

Why Ford's Failing

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There are many reasons why Ford has hit the skids, but one that holds resonance for me stems from a recent incident involving my fourth (and current) Lincoln. Why a Lincoln? I think it has to do with brand loyalty, and the fact that my former agency used to represent the automaker.

My loyalty extends across many branded products. When I changed agencies, I switched toothpastes from Crest to Colgate, colas from Pepsi to Coke, and back when I was a smoker, cigarette brands from Winston to Marlboro.

With regard to my leased Lincoln MKX, the dealer offered me a choice of sunroof or roof rails. I chose the latter, since my #2 son car-tops his dinghy sailboat to regattas. On one recent excursion, one rail ripped from the roof almost causing the sailboat to fly off on the highway. It didn't, but the broken rail put a nice gash in the roof of my crossover.

I notified the dealer who agreed to replace the rails, but refused to pay for the dent in the roof (for which he said I would be liable). Huh? I decided to call "faceless" Ford customer service, which informed me that Ford is not responsible for the rail unless it had a manufacturer's defect. I asked the rep what weight the rails were designed to hold. Duh. He'd get back to me. Two days latter he had an answer: 100 pounds. The boat weighed 80. The rails failed. He didn't budge. I asked for a supervisor.

Sherri called three days later and said that a regional rep would inspect the car and make a decision. A week passed, and this morning she called. Ford will not pay to repair the dent that its failed roof rail created. It's the dealer's responsibility and since the dealer is independently owned, Ford washes its hands of the matter. "It's not covered under the warranty."

Over the weekend, I started to read my friend Rohit Bharagava's new book Personality Not Included in which he derided this very sort of behavior from what he termed "faceless" companies. He asked, where would you direct your anger if stuck on a plane sitting on the tarmac for seven hours: to the harried stewardess or to the airline?

Well, Ford, your refusal to pick up the relatively small fee to fix the dent has cost you a brand loyal customer. I will never again buy or lease a Ford product. DUMB COMPANY.

UPDATE: July 16 - The Lincoln dealer called yesterday to say that it would repair the damage on my MKX's roof. Thank you Ford customer service.

For Immediate Release

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CNET's Caroline McCarthy yesterday blogged about how the news value is wearing thin when it comes to musical artists releasing their new work exclusively via the Web. She also recognized the buzz these partnerships have offered both the bands and their online hosts:

"...they've also created digital music's ultimate publicity stunt...a win-win situation for both the site doing the promotion and for the album: the artist gets extra publicity, especially if accessing the streaming file requires joining a mailing list or signing up as a "fan," and the site gets some buzz from new visitors who may be fans of the band but haven't heard of the site."

Me thinks that there's still some life in this story, especially as bolderfaced-names opt for the web over traditional distribution channels. (Could first-run, full-length theatrical films be far behind?) Ultimately, however, the "ultimate publicity stunt" will lose its editorial allure (mostly because the required superlatives also will dissipate):

"...it's only a matter of time before this sort of promotion is so commonplace that it's no longer newsworthy--remember when we all wrote breathlessly about every big Web company's foray into Facebook applications?"

Facebook applications? Caroline, you mean you don't remember when we PR types issued news releases to announce the launch of new websites...and they actually were picked up? The next thing you know, the artist who penned "The Times They Are A-Changin" will run a promotional campaign on YouTube!

CrunchBase, Vator.TV...

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Three digital trends coalesce to offer a new "placement" opportunity for PR pros. They are: digital video as a communications vehicle, engaging A-list bloggers, and the wisdom of the crowds.

In an interview with Beet.TV's Andy Plesser, TechCrunch's NY-based co-editor Erick Schonfeld revealed details about CrunchBase, a "free directory of technology companies, people, and investors that anyone can edit. " The searchable database of tech-oriented video debuted last month.

Schoenfeld, whom this blogger briefly met in the PDF press room last week and who posted today on a study that pokes holes in some of Chris Anderson's conclusions about "the long tail," says it's now easy for publicists to gain a digital foothold on TechCrunch.

Just upload a 60-second video featuring one's CEO or company founder waxing elevator-like about his or her company. The viewers then vote on the fate of the enterprising video, à la what Amie Street does with its DRM-free music. It also kind of reminds me of Bambi Francisco's Vator.tv about which this blogger wrote a while back.

Anyway, soon gone are the days when the $50,000 professional video camera was needed to capture broadcast-quality video to offer up to broadcast TV news. Go out and buy a FlipCam and start tooling away. Even more fun, sign up for Qik and feed your video live onto the Web from your mobile phone. Or if you're really hopeless, you can always turn to one of the new breed of video producers.

A Pre-Tour Publicity Campaign

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You gotta love Roger Friedman, Fox's acerbic and most amusing gossipist. I bet he honed his killer instincts at Camp Greylock, the venerable all boys sports camp where I first met him as an 11-year-old. I digress.

Roger astutely asserts in his latest column that the queen of pop, or more specifically, her manager, has manufactured a series of newsmaking scandals to help bolster CD, movie and concert receipts. The first scandal has Madonna allegedly in a romantic romp with the Yankees' star third baseman (with whom she happens to share a manager).

The second has Ms. Ciccone hooking up with her old flame Sandra Bernhard after the two attended Kaballah services together. Is this even kosher? And finally, Rog says the whole Guy Ritchie divorce thing is a sham. Roger postulates that it's all manufactured to garner publicity:

"In other words: We are being subjected to a summer long P.R. campaign surrounding this couple just to build interest in them. Enough already! Oh yeah, is it working? Well, now you know about the film and the tour. I guess it is. Brilliantly."

Hey Roger, you forgot one: the titillating tell-all tome penned by Madonna's estranged brother Christopher. Doesn't its arrival coincide with her concert tour, and therefore couldn't it be construed as a cheap shot at sibling reconciliation? If Roger's right, and who am I to doubt a columnist for Fox News, then he's proved the adage that all publicity is good publicity.